Telomeres and Aging

Short Scary Telomeres and Healthy AgingDon and Peggy Doman

When we maintained a full-service television studio in Tacoma, we would have people bring their VHS tapes to us for copying. Sometimes they would bring us VHS video tapes that had already been copied and they were looking for copies of the copy that was already removed once or twice from the original. The final result would be something so smeary it would be virtually unwatchable. Imagine making a photocopy of a great photograph and then making a copy of that photocopy and so on and so on. Each copy is degraded. Over time this is what happens with the cells in our bodies. This is the process of aging.

Here is how the website 23andme.com explains biological aging, "In addition to the changes you can see and feel as you age, there are less obvious ways in which your body ages. For example, the cells in your body need to make copies of themselves to offset injury and general wear and tear. This renewal process, however, is limited by the length of your telomeres. Telomeres are DNA sequences that protect the ends of chromosomes and get shorter with each new copy. When a cell's telomeres become too short, it can't make any more copies of itself and eventually dies. For these reasons, telomere length is sometimes used as an indicator of "biological aging", meaning that it can be used to understand how old a person's cells appear. Telomeres tend to be longer in women than in men and their length is strongly influenced by genetics. Non-genetic factors such as smoking and obesity also influence telomere length. Some scientists have suggested that telomere length directly influences longevity, but more research is needed to know for sure."

Generally, when our bodies are young and in good health our cells are pretty much duplicated in total as they replace themselves. Diet and exercise provide healthy systems that act as a maintenance department. But wear and tear eventually starts to overcome our ability to bounce back and maintain what we had when we were younger. There are recommended foods that can perhaps assist the copying, assuring more information is passed along with each cell division. When the telomeres become too short, our cells can no longer divide nor protect against cancer and heart disease. Not all cells divide. Some cells stop dividing once the organ has developed, the heart and the brain, for instance. The same protection we can offer dividing cells works for those organs' cells, also.

There are plenty of fruits and vegetables that can help with your telomeres. Here are just a few . . .
Zinc is involved in DNA replication and repair. Beets, kumquats, and horseradish can help DNA, also. Alpha-lipoic acid is an antioxidant that helps protect DNA. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage, mustard, and others can generate dietary indoles and isothiocyanatescan that can assist in the fight against DNA damage. Even the little furry kiwi fruit has the ability to protect and repair the body from DNA damage.

Healthy aging involves taking steps in the right direction. Our bodies can do the work we need to protect ourselves and keep us in good health with a little nutritional assistance and good lifestyle choices.

Living longer is never the goal, but living a full life without disease and physical or mental breakdown is what we're really after.

If you can improve your nutrition, environment, and lifestyle, you have a chance to help your interior copy machine produce decent copies well into the future.

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